Unlike last year’s Killers Of The Flower Moon, Fancy Dance is a story about Native American women told by Native American women. The film follows petty thief and erstwhile drug-dealer Jax (Lily Gladstone) as she struggles to take care of her niece, Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson) after her sister’s disappearance. When the state moves to put Roki in the care of her well-meaning but ignorant white grandparents, Jax must balance the search for her sister with the fight to keep Roki.

Fancy Dance shines a light on Seneca–Cayuga culture with love as well as anger at a system that dismisses the murder of indigenous women and forces people to turn to crime for survival, only to punish them for it. These social criticisms ring so true because they are thoroughly grounded in the familial relationships of the characters. Both Gladstone and Deroy-Olson bring a wonderful tenderness to the aunt-niece dynamic, so that in the midst of upheaval, we are able to find the small joys with them (such as the celebration of Roki’s first period).

Director Erica Tremblay’s feature debut is many things: murder mystery, coming-of-age story, family tale, social drama. Yet somehow, these diverse genres blend in such a way that everything comes together effortlessly in the moving finale. Fancy Dance invites us to mourn the thousands of indigenous women who never received justice, but it also demands our respect for those still living.
Fancy Dance is in cinemas from Friday 21 June, and on Apple TV+ from Friday 28 June.